Minnesota secretary requests $200,000 state match to unlock $1 million HAVA grant; reviews 2024 election outcomes and security work

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon asked the House Elections Finance and Government Operations Committee to approve a $200,000 state match so his office can draw down roughly $1 million in federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) election-security funds and described the office’s administration and security work during the 2024 election cycle.

The request matters because the HAVA funds are restricted to election security projects and require a 20% state match; Simon said the grant would sustain the office’s election-security navigator team and related cybersecurity and physical-security supports for county and local election administrators.

Simon told the committee the federal government’s latest election-security appropriation in 2024 totaled $55 million nationally, and Minnesota’s prorated share was “just about” $1 million; the required state match is about $200,000. “We asked for the committee’s support in this request to unlock all of that $1,000,000 in federal grant money,” Simon said. He described the funds as one-time federal dollars with a two-year timeline to provide the state match and submit a federal work plan and periodic reports to the Election Assistance Commission.

Simon and Elections Director Paul Linnell summarized the 2024 cycle and post-election work. Simon said Minnesota saw high turnout and “low drama,” noting unofficial totals of 3,272,414 ballots cast statewide—about 76.4% turnout—and that approximately 1.3 million Minnesotans, roughly 39% of voters, cast ballots before Election Day by mail or in-person absentee. Linnell said absentee voting started Sept. 20, 2024, and the office permitted counties to expand in-person absentee options (including two additional weekend days and extended evening hours) and to process absentee ballots over an 18-day period rather than the prior seven-day window.

Linnell explained how the statewide voter registration system (SVRS) is operated by the Secretary of State’s office and used by county election staff to enter and update registrations, absentee ballots, and voting history. He said SVRS receives data from multiple sources—including Driver and Vehicle Services, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Health, the Department of Corrections, and the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC)—and that the office conducts annual list-maintenance in January that inactivates records with no activity across two general-election cycles (roughly four years).

On security and local support, Simon and Bill Ekblad, the office’s election security navigator, outlined ongoing activities to help counties and cities manage cyber and physical risks. Ekblad described a program of in-person outreach last year—his three-person team visited all 87 counties—and cross-agency partnerships with federal and state agencies, including CISA and the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the state BCA fusion center, MNIT, and national associations that share election security resources. “Our in-person presence is key to building the relationships and the trust that our county officials can leverage,” Ekblad said. He emphasized the program focuses on protecting the supporting systems used by local officials (desktop machines, databases and communications) rather than the certified voting systems themselves.

Linnell and Ekblad also addressed two operational problems counties and the office encountered in 2024. First, several counties received incorrect ballot proofs from a vendor that the office and counties determined was “underprepared and under resourced”; counties sought court orders to correct printed ballots where necessary, and the office said it and the vendor have met to identify corrective actions. Linnell characterized the number as “a handful” of counties and said his office will provide more training and resources on the ballot-proofing process to reduce recurrence.

Second, the committee heard about a highly publicized chain-of-custody incident in which sealed absentee ballot signature envelopes were transferred from municipal locations to a central county location and boxes were left unattended for a period. Linnell described the county’s corrective actions: county officials reviewed returned materials, confirmed all signature envelopes were sealed and accounted for, and found no missing or tampered ballots. The Secretary of State’s office issued reminders and guidance to all counties about chain-of-custody requirements and said it is discussing possible statutory or procedural changes to further standardize chain-of-custody practices.

Simon previewed outreach and voter-engagement efforts the office ran in 2024: expansion of online voter tools into 10 additional languages (for a total of 11 languages available for registration and absentee requests), the students’ mock election program (439 schools and more than 131,000 student votes), youth day at the Capitol (about 600 students), and public education related to the 2023 “restore the vote” law that re-enfranchised about 55,000 people leaving incarceration. Simon said the office mailed letters to likely-eligible impacted individuals, visited all 11 state correctional facilities, and worked with community partners to explain the law.

Simon and Linnell closed by stressing the state’s decentralized structure: counties, cities and townships run ballots and counting, and the Secretary of State’s role is training, systems, certification and statewide coordination. Linnell outlined post-election procedures that include public hand-count post-election reviews (randomly drawn precincts in every county to compare machine and hand counts), county canvasses, and procedures for recounts and election contests. He noted Minnesota’s statutory post-election thresholds for audit deviation (tied to a quarter of 1%) and the statutory margin that triggers a publicly funded recount (generally 1.5% for many contests).

Looking ahead, the office said it will continue training for county officials, consider legislative changes to further strengthen chain-of-custody standards, and ask the committee to approve the state match so the office can spend the HAVA election-security grant funds within federal reporting and auditing requirements.